Tangerine Seeks $708 Million to Finance Lawfirms, Suits

March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Tangerine Investment Management
Ltd., a lender to medium-sized U.K. law firms, plans to increase
its funds sixfold to 450 million pounds ($708 million) as it
expands abroad and starts financing individual cases.

The global market for litigation financing, where investors
such as BlackRobe Capital Partners LLC of the U.S. and London-listed Burford Capital Ltd. help fund legal fees in exchange for
a share in any award, has grown to about $5 billion, said Clive
Ward, chief executive officer of Tangerine International Ltd.,
which promotes the fund. Tangerine’s legal financing business,
which lends working capital to law firms, is unique to the fund,
he said.

“In most countries now, access to justice is no longer
funded by the government,” Ward said in an interview yesterday
during a private banking conference in Singapore, where
Tangerine is setting up an office. “So if you can’t afford to
run your lawsuit yourself, you can’t do it. We’re providing the
mechanism to do it.”

Tangerine, which now has funds of 70 million pounds,
delivered dollar-denominated returns of 6.75 percent in 2010 and
11.18 percent last year for investors including insurers
Prudential Plc, Assicurazioni Generali SpA and Aviva Plc,
according to fund documents shown by Ward. Tangerine, founded by
Tim Schools, a U.K. lawyer, plans to raise the new funds by the
end of 2013.

Lending to law firms is not a priority for banks, which may
charge 20 percent or more in the U.K. for firms that don’t post
collateral, compared with Tangerine’s flat 15 percent rate, Ward
said.